Poseidon

[Big Magilla]

Remakes and sequels in general don't sit well with me, but if they're going to remake something it should be with the idea of improving upon the original. One can argue their artistic merits, but remaking silent screen epics like The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur in the 1950s made sense due to the great advances in film techniques. Remaking films like Planet of the Apes, The Posiedon Adventure and The Omen, which still play like they were made yesterday just becuase they can do things with computers they couldn't 30 or 40 years ago makes little to no sense.

Gregory Peck and Lee Remick were top of the line actors even if The Omen hardly challenged them. Still, who wants to watch Liev Schrieber and Julia Stiles play those role when you can see genuine stars play them? The only "name" actor in the film is Mia Farrow playing the role of the evil housekeeper played by Billie Whitelaw in the original. I like Farrow when she plays it subtle, but I have a feeling she'll be way over the top in this thing. I shudder at the thought of who they might cast in Lew Ayres' role in the sequel.

[criddic3]

Next remake to avoid like the plague: The Omen.

You're probably right. Who has the stature of Gregory Peck?

From picture stills, i am convinced the child is not a match for the creepy stare of Harvey Stephens. Don't know if they can match (or are the using?) Goldsmith's score. And Richard Donner did a good job of bringing some genuine atmosphere to the original.

The other reason to avoid a remake of "The Omen" is the temptation for sequels. In the first series, only one and two were worth seeing. Despite the presence of Sam Neill, the third one was rather laughable and the TV-made fourth was somewhat tame.

[OscarGuy]

I saw the film tonight. While I agree that characterization disappeared, I did like the movie overall. I miss Shelley Winters...she really made the original for me.

The biggest problem is that a lot of the characters and roles are switched around in the movie and with the few "we know you're going to die" shmucks thrown in, it felt more like a horror film than a classic disaster pic.

I think there are a lot of beautiful directed shots. Several scenes do leave you on your seat. There's plenty of hokiness, though. I will probably only give it about two to two-and-a-half stars overall. I think that's pretty average. I wasn't bored. I wasn't insulted.

One of my nitpicks on this one is the "brief" explanation of a "rogue" wave. I think it would have been more interesting to intercut with some seismic institute indicating there had been a tremor in the north Atlantic...it might have made it feel like more of an event.


On a COMPLETELY separate note:
Josh Lucas is HOT...and Kurt Russell looks much better when he's got his hair wet later in the pic than the salt-and-pepper job early on. Realtive newbie Mike Vogel is cute, too.

[Big Magilla]

Glad to see Ronald Neame isn't afraid of speaking out against the remake.

Neame is hardly the world's greatest living director, but he did have a legendary career starting out as assitant cameraman on Hitchcock's Blackmail when he was still a teenager. He established his name as cinematographer on such films as In Which We Serve and Blithe Spirit and directed some very good films including The Horse's Mouth, Tunes of Glory, The Chalk Garden and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie as well as well as more than his share of clunkers. Even his clunkers, though, had interesting characters. How they could even think of re-making The Poseidon Adventure without including a character as potentially memorable as Shelley Winters' Belle Rosen in the original is beyond me.

Next remake to avoid like the plague: The Omen.

[Penelope]

I'm hearing reports that audiences in LA are actually booing at the end of the film. That's sad.

Talk about your disasters....

[Damien]

Another beaut from Wolfgang Petersen. Isn't it time for him to check into the Motion Picture County Home?

[Penelope]

Ronald Neame is largely correct, except for one thing: even the first 20 minutes lacks the character depth that enhanced the original. Those characters may have been 'types,' but the script (which was way more faithful to Paul Gallico's novel than the new version) and the acting added marvelous details to make the audience care about the characters and their journey.

The new film feels extremely choppy in the first half hour, as if there were stuff filmed but was left on the editing room floor; then the wave hits in what seems like only 15 minutes in and the rest of the film is non-stop carnage.

Except for one scene, the movie also lacks the religious symbolism that--even if it were a bit hammy--made the first one so much more meaningful.

Suffice it to say that the original still remains a classic of its genre, and this remake will, er, go down as nothing more than a footnote.

[anonymous1980]

Here are my random reactions from the movie:

- I concur with the director. I missed the Shelley Winters character. The closest thing to a Shelley Winters character in this Poseidon is Richard Dreyfuss's character, believe it or not.

- The characterizations are largely flat, very cardboard. They threw out any individual story arcs the characters could've had and made it better. There are hints of it (like with Russell and Rossum and with Dreyfuss's character) but they're largely tossed aside for the spectacle.

- The Kid in the movie (Jimmy Bennett) was far less annoying than in the original (Eric Shea). He could've used better writing.

[Sonic Youth]

With 129 reviews, Poseidon has a 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Worse, it received a thumbs down from Ronald Neame, the director of the original "Poseidon Adventure".

Poseidon director judges remake
By Peter Bowes
BBC News, Los Angeles


Poseidon, the big-budget remake of cult 1972 hit The Poseidon Adventure, opens in the United States this weekend.

Directed by Wolfgang Petersen, the German film-maker behind Troy and The Perfect Storm, the film retells the story of a luxury ocean liner that capsizes under a freak wave.

The original film, which starred Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters, suffered a mauling by the critics but was a box-office sensation.

Over the decades it has endured as a classic disaster flick, thanks in part to its larger-than-life characters and campy humour.

"It's a complete mystery to me," says director Ronald Neame when asked to explain his film's appeal.

"I never believed that it was more than just an average picture."

Produced by Irwin Allen, the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning one for best song.

'Codswallop'

Neame, who recently celebrated his 95th birthday, believes the film may have succeeded because it was aimed at a very young audience.

"It was directed at 10- to 15-year olds and they loved it," says the Beverly Hills resident.

"I've had hundreds of letters from various people who were around 10, 11 and 12 when they originally saw it. Its effect on them was enormous."

In Neame's opinion, Petersen is "a top-notch director - I admire all that he has done very, very much."

It was with some trepidation, therefore, that he attended an early screening of the German's modern-day interpretation of Poseidon starring Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas and Richard Dreyfuss.

"I was absolutely convinced he would make ours look like a whole lot of codswallop," he laughs.

"For the first 20 minutes I thought, 'Oh boy, this is so much better than ours.

"The special effects were great, we didn't really have much in the way of special effects, we did everything ourselves.

"The ship was wonderful and the turning over of the ship was more convincing and more believable, and I thought, 'well, good.'

"Naturally there was a part of me that would have rather it wasn't quite as good as mine, but nevertheless, I was happy for Warners."

'Cardboard'

However, Neame's enthusiasm for the opening of the movie was tempered by his disappointment at the way the story unravelled.

"For the first 10 minutes I thought, 'This is great because they are developing characters.'

"But after the ship turned over, they didn't bother to go on developing those characters.

"It just became a noisy list of explosions, which I thought was a pity. By the end of the film I thought, 'Ours was better.' It's a terrible thing to say, but I really do."

Neame, who acknowledges he has made his share of "stinking pictures", believes Poseidon suffers from problems that beset many action films.

"The software - the story and the characters - gets in the way of the hardware, which are the explosions and all of that. It's very difficult to balance the two.

"I know our characters were cardboard, but we did at least have characters," he continues. "By God, I miss Shelley in the new one."

'Frenetic'

Though he last directed a film in 1990, Neame remains active in Hollywood.

He recently recorded a DVD commentary for the original Poseidon Adventure and says he still loves to see a good film.

As far as he is concerned, though, the new Poseidon does not come under that category.

"I think it was a mistake, if I may say so, to make it again because of its enormous success," he says.

"Everything at the moment has become too frenetic, partly because the stories are not good enough.

"So they try to make up for their lack of good characterisation and storytelling by quick cutting and frenetic use of the camera. And I think that's a pity."

[Sonic Youth]

You should've held out for $75.

Congrats!

[Penelope]

You did that!! That is so cool! I actually was surfing You Tube a few weeks ago and came across that, what a blast!

[Eric]

Here might be the time to tell about my first paying editing gig (of a sort). Someone offered me $50 to burn him a DVD-R of a cheesy music video I put together for an old college video editing project. He intends to show it at some Poseidon Adventure fan club screening in California in preps for the remake's premiere.

[Penelope]

A new, complete trailer can be found here. Increasingly looks more cheesy and, at the same time, more mundane compared to the original, but I'm at least hoping it's the guilty pleasure of the summer.

[Penelope]

As with the original, it looks like we may have a Best Original Song nominee; but does this mean we won't hear anything of "The Morning After"? An interview with Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas:

"However, she'll be traveling by sea when she appears in the big-budget remake of The Poseidon Adventure. "I'm a singer on the ship," she said, "so the role is not really a stretch." However, the song she sings -- "I Won't Let You Fall," a power ballad she co-wrote with bandmates Will.I.Am and drummer Keith Harris -- is. "It's very Nineties Mariah or Whitney," Fergie said. "It goes with the theme of the movie and the whole diva character -- very larger than life." She'll have to make every second of her on-screen time count because her character is, well, short-lived. "I definitely die. You don't see me die, but I do. It's short and sweet. I'm out!" . . . "

[OscarGuy]

This one at least looks like it might be fun. The TV one interrupted my weekly West Wing fix, and so I inadvertently taped the first hour. I watched about 15 minutes of it, saw that all the problems were being caused by terrorists who had snuck on the boat and I stopped watching. It was ludicrous and in very poor taste.